CLONE CODES

Age Range: 12 & up

Pub Date: Feb. 1st, 2010ISBN: 978-0-439-92983-7Publisher: Scholastic

It is the year 2170, and Leanna, daughter of a respected child psychologist, is a typical 13-year-old interested in friends and sports. She is enrolled in All-Virtual School, where she experiences such historical events as an escape with Harriet Tubman. This becomes real when her mother is arrested for activism on behalf of the clones who serve as slave labor for humans. Leanna follows her mother’s order to flee the clutches of her mother’s jailers. While on the run, a message reveals that her mother’s interest in clones was more than academic: Leanna is herself a clone and in danger should that fact be discovered. With the help of others sympathetic to their cause, Leanna avoids detection while dealing with facts about her identity that send her reeling. Some of the parallels to American slavery and racism are obvious; others are clever, such as the depiction of a secondary character, Houston, a closeted cyborg (another oppressed minority) who happens to be three-fifths human. This is fast-paced adventure with a provocative exploration of civil rights and identity. (Science fiction. 12 & up)